Mormon Rituals: Ordinances or Sacraments?

This quick-and-dirty post traces some of the history of Christian liturgy to consider a different way to think about Mormon ritual. It’s very much exploratory; I welcome your insights and critiques.

Many of the most rancorous debates of the Reformation Era–and there were lots of them–revolved around liturgy and the practice of Christian rituals. Not only did Protestants clash with the Roman Church as they attacked and rejected the conventional set of seven sacraments, but before long, the new Protestant schools of thought were in conflict with each other as well. More than anything else, in fact, it was the debate over the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, that shattered the prospects of a united Protestant Christendom.

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Pageants and practice

Megan Sanborn Jones is currently the coordinator for the Theatre Arts Studies program at BYU. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in theatre critical studies. Her work about religious performance in 19th-20th century America has been published in Theatre Journal, The State of the Art, and Theatre Topics. Her book, Performing America in Anti-Mormon Melodrama, was published by Routledge in 2009 and won the Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association. We are pleased to have her contributions here at the JI.

My interest in religious practice in Mormon history is neither wholly religious nor very historical.  I?m grateful to colleagues in the field who focus on theological practices from baptism ordinances to temple ceremonies to relief society birth rituals.  The topics I study as performance scholar are rarely fundamental to salvation.  Contextualizing Mormon ritual is generally a nineteenth century study, requiring detailed looks at the archives to tease out foundational practices and first-person accounts of origins.  My interest in the material practice of Mormonism is more contemporary.  As Ryan T. points out in his introduction to Religious ?Practice? Month at the JI, ?Time. . .has brought a new consciousness of the embodied, external, purposive behavior of religious actors.?  I take his description literally and examine Mormon actors of the twenty-first century, on theatrical stages, in LDS Pageants.

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JI March Madness Bracket 2014

It’s that time of the year, when the snow begins to melt (hopefully) and a hoops fan’s heart turns to March Madness. This year, we at Juvenile Instructor are hosting a March Madness bracket challenge for our loyal followers. Join us!

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The Genius Ritual

Okay, my last post talked about the concept of the “genius”: guardian beings like angels.  Here I talk about a possible ritual that young Joseph Smith might have performed on the night of the Moroni visitation.  Michael Quinn argued that Smith may have performed some type of ritual on the night of the visitation.  After summarizing Quinn’s arguments, I present the following:

An additional piece of context for the Moroni visit was the statement from the neighbor that Smith was ?born with a genius.?  Again, this was a Platonic notion that remained prevalent in grimoires.

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The Genius

The following is a short excerpt from my dissertation.  It’s part of a bigger section on the Smith family religiosity.  It therefore refers to issues discussed earlier, which may make this a little confusing.  This section doesn’t address a ritual, but it’s important context for a post I’ll put up soon that does have to do with ritual.  Extra points for those who can guess what that post will be about.

The Chosen Son.  Associates of the Smiths in Vermont and New York said the Smiths spoke of Joseph Jr. as the chosen son.  Smith had a number of traits that would have set him apart in folk culture.  The Green Mountain Boys said that the Smiths said that Joseph Jr. was ?born with a veil,? which meant born with the caul: being born with the caul set children apart in European folk culture, often meaning that the child was a seer.^[1]  The Green Mountain Boys seemed to link that claim to Joseph Sr.?s desire to find a stone for his son by which he would ?see all over the world,? suggesting the caul and seeing with a stone were linked; Smith himself would claim the ability to ?see? with a stone.

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My two current favorite books on ritual/liturgy/practice

A couple of years ago, I was reading David Hall?s edited volume Lived Religion, and ruminated a bit on my reading along with a request for suggested volumes. For practice month here at the JI (deep in my heart it is really ritual/liturgy month), I wanted to similarly open up with a discussion of two books that have influenced my current study of Mormon liturgy, and then ask for your advice.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup 3/1-3/8

Hello and welcome to this week’s Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup! As always, if we missed something, please let us know in the comments.

If you’re looking for a great volume to teach material religion, Samira K. Mehta has a review of A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke at the BYU Church History and Doctrine/LDS Church History Department’s Symposium. He told the audience, among other things, “Truth and transparency complement each other,” he said. “We always need to remember that transparency and openness keep us clear of the negative side effects of secrecy or the cliché of faith-promoting rumors.” Jana Reiss also has an excellent writeup on what she calls “this breath of fresh air.” If you attended the symposium, let us know your thoughts on the speakers!

Neylan McBaine is calling for women’s experiences working with ward and stake leadership for a future book project. If you have any experiences, positive or negative, please be sure to let Neylan know. Her project is sure to be useful in the academic sphere for those interested in Mormon religious practice.

Along those same lines, the New York Times published another article on Mormon women. The article addresses, among other things, holding children during baby blessings and the confession/church court process (and its lack of women in the process for other women). The LDS Church’s Newsroom blog re-blogged the first piece in its “Getting It Right Series.” It’ll be interesting to see if this one is as well.

The Society for the History of Women in the Americas is is hosting a writing workshop for postgraduate students on Wednesday 11th December at UCL, Institute of the Americas. Those interested should e-mail the organizers; their address is found in the link.

“The Bible in American Life” is a national study by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. The purpose of the study is to understand better how Americans use the Bible in their personal daily lives and how other influences, including religious communities and the Internet, shape individuals’ use of scripture. Apparently most Americans agree with J. Reuben Clark, whether they care or not, and use the KJV more than any other translation of the Bible.

If you’re in the UK April 3-5, you can hear our own Christopher present on itinerant Methodist preachers in British North America and the Carribean. For those interested in Mormons, be sure to check out Benjamin Lindquist?s presentation on “Mission, Migration, and Memory: Childhood and the Latter-Day Saints’ Trek to Salt Lake City.”

Finally, Matthew Garrett, who has shared his thoughts on the convergence of Mormon and Native American History, was interviewed this week about the Indian Placement Program in the 1970s. It was not discontinued until 2000 when the last student graduated.

Let us know what we missed. We would also love to hear about your experience at the symposium!

A Natural History of Sacrament Bread

Cooking? situates us in the world in a very special place, facing the natural world on one side and the social world on the other?The cook stands squarely between nature and culture, conducting a process of translation and negotiation.[1]

Bread is the only food that I have ever prepared that was alive when I placed it in the oven.  Unlike other edibles that we cook, bread contains the breath of life.  It takes in air, it changes form and it grows and shrinks.  Food writers and historians assert that ?entire civilizations are implied in a loaf of bread? ? humans, plants, micro-organisms, agriculture, technologies, social structures and economies are all kneaded together.[2]  Bread-making is a process of transformation which is perhaps why it has been so tied to religious practice. In 19^th century Utah, its role as a staple meant that its preparation was an important part of daily life.  It was also an essential part of Mormon ritual that was invested with significance as a symbol of death, resurrection, priesthood and covenants.

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Introduction to Religious “Practice” Month at the JI

The study of American religion ain’t what it used to be. Not so many decades ago, most scholars had a rather, shall we say, circumscribed view of what it meant to do religious history. Most were preoccupied with the development of religious institutions (in other words, white Protestant churches), with the elite leaders who led those institutions, and sometimes with the formal theological agendas that those leaders articulated. All of those conventions, however, have been overturned more or less recently, and scholarship today is much more inclusive, more democratic, and more attuned to dimensions of the human experience. Much of the old model, as we now can clearly see, rested on Protestant notions about the nature of what constituted “religion” to begin with, and so the process of revision has entailed coming to grips with these subtending assumptions.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

The main news items for this week are all the up coming events.  Matt McBride is giving a lecture on early Mormon female missionaries for the John A. Witsoe Lecture Series this Tuesday, March 4, in Logan.  This Thursday and Friday is the Church History Symposium on The Worldwide Church: The Global Reach of Mormonism.  Thursday at BYU; Friday in Salt Lake.  BYU also has a full slate of events planned for women’s history month.  And speaking of Mormon academic conferences, registration for this year’s MHA in San Antonio is now open.

A new gospel-topics entry was posted on the church’s website: this time on Mormon ideas about deification.  ABC ran an article on it.  Furthermore, the New York Times ran an article on Mormon women, and this article from the Huffington Post didn’t focus on Mormonism per se but did give us a nice picture of the temple.

The big news, of course, is that Jimmer is now playing for the Bulls.

Finally, Savannah Reid, an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, is doing research on Mormon womanhood for her senior capstone and needs people to take this survey.